September 16, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteA jury in California today reached a guilty verdict in the trial of Matthew Gatrel, a St. Charles, Ill. man charged in 2018 with operating two online services that allowed paying customers to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Internet users and websites. Gatrel’s conviction comes roughly two weeks after his co-conspirator pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to running the services. The user interface for Downthem[.]org. Prosecutors for the Central District of California charged Gatrel, 32, and his business partner Juan “Severon” Martinez of Pasadena, Calif. with operating two DDoS-for-hire or […]
September 15, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteTTEC, [NASDAQ: TTEC], a company used by some of the world’s largest brands to help manage customer support and sales online and over the phone, is dealing with disruptions from a network security incident that appears to be the result of a ransomware attack, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. While many companies have been laying off or furloughing workers in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, TTEC has been massively hiring. Formerly TeleTech Holdings Inc., Englewood, Co.-based TTEC now has nearly 60,000 employees, most of whom work from home and answer customer support calls on behalf […]
September 14, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteMicrosoft today pushed software updates to plug dozens of security holes in Windows and related products, including a vulnerability that is already being exploited in active attacks. Also, Apple has issued an emergency update to fix a flaw that’s reportedly been abused to install spyware on iOS products, and Google‘s got a new version of Chrome that tackles two zero-day flaws. Finally, Adobe has released critical security updates for Acrobat, Reader and a slew of other software. Four of the flaws fixed in this patch batch earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” rating, meaning they […]
September 10, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteOn Thursday evening, KrebsOnSecurity was the subject of a rather massive (and mercifully brief) distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The assault came from “Meris,” the same new “Internet of Things” (IoT) botnet behind record-shattering attacks against Russian search giant Yandex this week and internet infrastructure firm Cloudflare earlier this summer. Cloudflare recently wrote about its attack, which clocked in at 17.2 million bogus requests-per-second. To put that in perspective, Cloudflare serves over 25 million HTTP requests per second on average. In its Aug. 19 writeup, Cloudflare neglected to assign a name to the botnet […]
September 8, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteMicrosoft Corp. warns that attackers are exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Windows 10 and many Windows Server versions to seize control over PCs when users open a malicious document or visit a booby-trapped website. There is currently no official patch for the flaw, but Microsoft has released recommendations for mitigating the threat. According to a security advisory from Redmond, the security hole CVE-2021-40444 affects the “MSHTML” component of Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows 10 and many Windows Server versions. IE been slowly abandoned for more recent Windows browsers like Edge, but the […]
September 6, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteIn May 2015, KrebsOnSecurity briefly profiled “The Manipulaters,” the name chosen by a prolific cybercrime group based in Pakistan that was very publicly selling spam tools and a range of services for crafting, hosting and deploying malicious email. Six years later, a review of the social media postings from this group shows they are prospering, while rather poorly hiding their activities behind a software development firm in Lahore that has secretly enabled an entire generation of spammers and scammers. The Web site in 2015 for the “Manipulaters Team,” a group of Pakistani hackers […]
September 2, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteSome of the most successful and lucrative online scams employ a “low-and-slow” approach — avoiding detection or interference from researchers and law enforcement agencies by stealing small bits of cash from many people over an extended period. Here’s the story of a cybercrime group that compromises up to 100,000 email inboxes per day, and apparently does little else with this access except siphon gift card and customer loyalty program data that can be resold online. The data in this story come from a trusted source in the security industry who has visibility into a […]
September 1, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteOver the past 15 years, a cybercrime anonymity service known as VIP72 has enabled countless fraudsters to mask their true location online by routing their traffic through millions of malware-infected systems. But roughly two weeks ago, VIP72’s online storefront — which ironically enough has remained at the same U.S.-based Internet address for more than a decade — simply vanished. Like other anonymity networks marketed largely on cybercrime forums online, VIP72 routes its customers’ traffic through computers that have been hacked and seeded with malicious software. Using services like VIP72, customers can select network […]
August 25, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteIn 2018, Andrew Schober was digitally mugged for approximately $1 million worth of bitcoin. After several years of working with investigators, Schober says he’s confident he has located two young men in the United Kingdom responsible for developing a clever piece of digital clipboard-stealing malware that let them siphon his crypto holdings. Schober is now suing each of their parents in a civil case that seeks to extract what their children would not return voluntarily. In a lawsuit filed in Colorado, Schober said the sudden disappearance of his funds in January 2018 prompted […]
August 19, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteCriminal hackers will try almost anything to get inside a profitable enterprise and secure a million-dollar payday from a ransomware infection. Apparently now that includes emailing employees directly and asking them to unleash the malware inside their employer’s network in exchange for a percentage of any ransom amount paid by the victim company. Image: Abnormal Security. Crane Hassold, director of threat intelligence at Abnormal Security, described what happened after he adopted a fake persona and responded to the proposal in the screenshot above. It offered to pay him 40 percent of a million-dollar […]
August 18, 2021
This post was originally published on this site T-Mobile warned Monday that a data breach has exposed the names, date of birth, Social Security number and driver’s license/ID information of more than 40 million current, former or prospective customers who applied for credit with the company. The acknowledgment came less than 48 hours after millions of the stolen T-Mobile customer records went up for sale in the cybercrime underground. On Monday evening, T-Mobile said a “highly sophisticated” attack against its network led to the breach of data on millions of customers. “Our preliminary analysis is that approximately 7.8 million current […]
August 16, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteCommunications giant T-Mobile said today it is investigating the extent of a breach that hackers claim has exposed sensitive personal data on 100 million T-Mobile USA customers, in many cases including the name, Social Security number, address, date of birth, phone number, security PINs and details that uniquely identify each customer’s mobile device. On Sunday, Vice.com broke the news that someone was selling data on 100 million people, and that the data came from T-Mobile. In a statement published on its website today, the company confirmed it had suffered an intrusion involving “some […]
August 13, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteA new dark web service is marketing to cybercriminals who are curious to see how their various cryptocurrency holdings and transactions may be linked to known criminal activity. Dubbed “Antinalysis,” the service purports to offer a glimpse into how one’s payment activity might be flagged by law enforcement agencies and private companies that try to link suspicious cryptocurrency transactions to real people. Sample provided by Antinalysis. “Worried about dirty funds in your BTC address? Come check out Antinalysis, the new address risk analyzer,” reads the service’s announcement, pointing to a link only accessible […]
August 10, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteMicrosoft today released software updates to plug at least 44 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and related products. The software giant warned that attackers already are pouncing on one of the flaws, which ironically enough involves an easy-to-exploit bug in the software component responsible for patching Windows 10 PCs and Windows Server 2019 machines. Microsoft said attackers have seized upon CVE-2021-36948, which is a weakness in the Windows Update Medic service. Update Medic is a new service that lets users repair Windows Update components from a damaged state so that the […]
August 9, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteI was preparing to knock off work for the week on a recent Friday evening when a curious and annoying email came in via the contact form on this site: “Hello I go by the username Nuclear27 on your site Briansclub[.]com,” wrote “Mitch,” confusing me with the proprietor of perhaps the underground’s largest bazaar for stolen credit and identity data. “I made a deposit to my wallet on the site but nothing has shown up yet and I would like to know why.” The real BriansClub login page. Several things stood out in […]
August 5, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteIt’s nice when ransomware gangs have their bitcoin stolen, malware servers shut down, or are otherwise forced to disband. We hang on to these occasional victories because history tells us that most ransomware moneymaking collectives don’t go away so much as reinvent themselves under a new name, with new rules, targets and weaponry. Indeed, some of the most destructive and costly ransomware groups are now in their third incarnation. A rough timeline of major ransomware operations and their reputed links over time. Reinvention is a basic survival skill in the cybercrime business. Among […]
July 29, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteEvery time there is another data breach, we are asked to change our password at the breached entity. But the reality is that in most cases by the time the victim organization discloses an incident publicly the information has already been harvested many times over by profit-seeking cybercriminals. Here’s a closer look at what typically transpires in the weeks or months before an organization notifies its users about a breached database. Our continued reliance on passwords for authentication has contributed to one toxic data spill or hack after another. One might even say […]
July 26, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Joseph “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor, in a photo from a paid press release on Sept. 02, 2020, pitching him as a trustworthy cryptocurrency expert and advisor. One day after last summer’s mass-hack of Twitter, KrebsOnSecurity wrote that 22-year-old British citizen Joseph “PlugwalkJoe” O’Connor appeared to have been involved in the incident. When the U.S. Justice Department last week announced O’Connor’s arrest and indictment, his alleged role in the Twitter compromise was well covered in the media. But most of the coverage seems to have overlooked the far more sinister criminal charges in the indictment, […]
July 21, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteA 18-year-old Tennessee man who helped set in motion a fraudulent distress call to police that lead to the death of a 60-year-old grandfather in 2020 was sentenced to 60 months in prison today. 60-year-old Mark Herring died of a heart attack after police surrounded his home in response to a swatting attack. Shane Sonderman, of Lauderdale County, Tenn. admitted to conspiring with a group of criminals that’s been “swatting” and harassing people for months in a bid to coerce targets into giving up their valuable Twitter and Instagram usernames. At Sonderman’s sentencing […]
July 20, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Peter Levashov, appearing via Zoom at his sentencing hearing today. A federal judge in Connecticut today handed down a sentence of time served to spam kingpin Peter “Severa” Levashov, a prolific purveyor of malicious and junk email, and the creator of malware strains that infected millions of Microsoft computers globally. Levashov has been in federal custody since his extradition to the United States and guilty plea in 2018, and was facing up to 12 more years in prison. Instead, he will go free under three years of supervised release and a possible fine. […]
July 19, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteBrowse the comments on virtually any story about a ransomware attack and you will almost surely encounter the view that the victim organization could have avoided paying their extortionists if only they’d had proper data backups. But the ugly truth is there are many non-obvious reasons why victims end up paying even when they have done nearly everything right from a data backup perspective. This story isn’t about what organizations do in response to cybercriminals holding their data for hostage, which has become something of a best practice among most of the top […]
July 13, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Microsoft today released updates to patch at least 116 security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software. At least four of the vulnerabilities addressed today are under active attack, according to Microsoft. Thirteen of the security bugs quashed in this month’s release earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” rating, meaning they can be exploited by malware or miscreants to seize remote control over a vulnerable system without any help from users. Another 103 of the security holes patched this month were flagged as “important,” which Microsoft assigns to vulnerabilities “whose exploitation could […]
July 9, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteLast summer, financial institutions throughout Texas started reporting a sudden increase in attacks involving well-orchestrated teams that would show up at night, use stolen trucks and heavy chains to rip Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) out of their foundations, and make off with the cash boxes inside. Now it appears the crime — known variously as “ATM smash-and-grab” or “chain gang” attacks — is rapidly increasing in other states. Four different ATM “chain gang” attacks in Texas recently. Image: Texas Bankers Association. The Texas Bankers Association documented at least 139 chain gang attacks against […]
July 8, 2021
This post was originally published on this site Last week cybercriminals deployed ransomware to 1,500 organizations that provide IT security and technical support to many other companies. The attackers exploited a vulnerability in software from Kaseya, a Miami-based company whose products help system administrators manage large networks remotely. Now it appears Kaseya’s customer service portal was left vulnerable until last week to a data-leaking security flaw that was first identified in the same software six years ago. On July 3, the REvil ransomware affiliate program began using a zero-day security hole (CVE-2021-30116) to deploy ransomware to hundreds of IT management […]
July 7, 2021
This post was originally published on this siteMicrosoft on Tuesday issued an emergency software update to quash a security bug that’s been dubbed “PrintNightmare,” a critical vulnerability in all supported versions of Windows that is actively being exploited. The fix comes a week ahead of Microsoft’s normal monthly Patch Tuesday release, and follows the publishing of exploit code showing would-be attackers how to leverage the flaw to break into Windows computers. At issue is CVE-2021-34527, which involves a flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service that could be exploited by attackers to run code of their choice on a target’s […]